Hunting You
by LilyGhost
Summary: Ranger has an immediate reaction to Stephanie being put in immediate danger. A Ranger POV story.


**All familiar characters and events belong to Janet. The mistakes are mine. **

Feeling your own blood running down your body is a peculiar one, and a feeling you don't forget after you've experienced it. Despite my abilities, resources, and advanced technology, Stephanie unfortunately had to endure that sensation again. To keep that from ever being repeated by this particular asshole, I chose a more ... _proactive, _and I suppose _reactive_, way of keeping her safe by making this house call. Soon I won't have to worry about another asshole remaining fixated on _my_ woman.

I received a minor flesh wound myself after I'd kicked in the door and surprised the current inhabitant. I wasted no time picking up - and then keeping suspended - the fucker who made the grave mistake of hurting Stephanie. And this piece of shit could continue to threaten my peace of mind if he's not taken out.

Abruzzi was just a preview of what I'd do to protect her. Once Steph was settled in my bed and sleeping what I pray to God is a peaceful sleep, I got to work. I checked out every piece of information I got, and then hunted non-stop for the last forty-nine minutes in order to find and eliminate this fucker. My soul may not appreciate another black mark on it, but my protective instincts and heart are thrilled to be squeezing his throat in my hands right now.

"The woman you harassed, chased, and cut ... belongs to me," I said, my eyes appearing as cold and dead as he'll be in a few minutes. "Do you know what that means?"

"You're a lucky sonvabitch?" He unwisely chose to say.

I shoved his words back into his mouth with my right fist, quickly followed by my left one, keeping his trachea in-between my fingers with the opposite hand than the one doing the punching.

"I am, but that's not the point I'm making. You're about to become an example of what happens to someone who touches what's mine."

"Ranger, don't kill him," Stephanie said from behind me, which seconds ago had just been empty space.

As much as I love hearing her say my name and her body being in close proximity to mine, she should be at home recovering right now, not standing here bearing witness to what I'm about to do. There's only one way she could know exactly where I am and why. I kept my hold on Kipling, but turned my head. My eyes, which purposely remained emotionless, went over Steph's head to the man standing behind her. Tank had his gun in his hand, not sure what they'd be walking in on, but it's now being held loosely at his side.

"She threatened to pull all her stitches out if I didn't tell her where you disappeared to. I'll take you beating me bloody over seeing her that way again. I didn't want her trying to sneak out and head here on her own, doing more damage to herself ... so I drove," Tank quickly explained, letting his fate fall where it may.

I don't like it, but I understand why he gave in and brought her to me. Earlier today, the control room notifying me that Stephanie, her shoulder bag, and her car, had been in three different places, got me and two teams out the door faster than any other emergency could. When something doesn't add up concerning her, it's always bad.

Tank had come with me to the location that was provided by Steph's boot heels. Bobby and Cal honed in on her fleet vehicle's coordinates and the neighborhood surrounding it. And Lester and Junior were to retrieve her bag. If she'd still been anywhere in the area, we were going to find her. Even if she weren't, _nothing_ would have prevented me from tracking her down. I'd prayed like hell that she was moving under her own steam and wasn't being carried or forced.

How Steph looked at the scene when we literally ran into her, is forever imprinted in my mind. Once I had her crushed in my arms, not being able to stop myself despite her bleeding, I let her explain how and why she was where we found her. Half-a-mile back, and not long before Tank and I - plus our teams - located her, Stephanie proudly told us how she had thrown a good left hook at Aaron Kipling when he had continued to follow her and tried to tackle her before she could make it out of the woods. Her hand had landed where it counted, but it only stunned him. It didn't knock out the man that I would learn is the brother of a skip who hadn't liked her getting his little brother locked back up.

It took only a minute to piece together a timeline of events from what she told us in the woods, where we knew she'd been, where her car had been abandoned, and the trail from the Cherokee, to her bag, and then eventually to her. Steph had stopped at a 7-Eleven to get a pint of ice cream in anticipation of the Chocolate Cobbler Ella told her this morning would be included in _her _section of our dinner menu. On the way back to her vehicle with her contraband ice cream, Kipling confronted her … recognizing her inside the store from the glimpse he caught of her at the TPD two weeks ago when he'd shown up to try to bail out his brother. Not wanting to deal with the idiot, Steph walked back into the store to have witnesses around until he got bored with her and left.

My Babe was already putting the incident behind her as she'd left the safety of the store the second time. Kipling had been waiting on a side street for her to leave the store's parking lot, and a mile down the road, he pulled out behind her. When a moment with no other drivers presented itself, he sped up and rammed her Cherokee, proceeding to sandwich it between his truck and a guardrail. Stephanie was oddly calm as she'd explained to me and my men, that she hadn't had many escape options to choose from after he left his vehicle and started to approach hers. What Kipling had planned for her I still can't think about, and neither would Stephanie at the time.

She had scooted out of the window on the passenger's side of her SUV and took off on foot. Her bag got yanked off her arm in the area of trees off the road where she'd hoped to disappear into and lose Kipling. She had picked getting free over fighting to keep her purse on her person. Tank and I had found her as she was backtracking through the brush not long after Kipling had lost the last of his patience with the chase he hadn't expected to be embarking on. Instead of trying to tackle her again, he had pulled a knife and brought his arm and it down on her, cutting a portion of her shoulder and upper arm when she'd raised hers to fire a bullet into him.

I've never been more grateful that she had taken her gun out of her bag _immediately_ after her vehicle had been hit, so she had her weapon with her even after her shoulder bag was long gone.

When Kipling had stupidly paused, as the realization hit him that she wasn't about to cower in fear in front of him, she fired again with her uninjured left arm ... her shot grazing his temple. Not a single part of me doubted that his wound would've been a fatal one if she'd had an extra second to perfect her aim. He suddenly decided it was safer to cut his loses, take off, and then apparently try to get out of the immediate area. The stupid fuck should've known he wouldn't be getting away from me that easily.

Having to see Stephanie standing there under the trees' canopy ... panting from her desperate run, the sleeve of her shirt torn, and her blood turning the nearby leaves from green to red, yet with a lot of fight still left in her, I'd felt proud but also sick to my stomach. I've seen and suffered enough so those I love shouldn't have to, but once again ... Stephanie was hurt just upholding the law by arresting someone who chose to break it. That led me to think even less sympathetically towards what I'm going to do to Kipling now.

"Come on, Batman," Steph said, bringing me back to the present moment and this home in Bordentown belonging to an elderly and now-hospitalized Kipling great-aunt, "choose life over death by coming home with me, instead of delivering a death blow to this asshole. I don't want you having to kill anyone else because of me, especially _him_. He's nowhere close to being worth the time or the trouble."

"Believe me, it's no trouble. And _you're _worth any amount of time."

"Thank you, but it's not necessary to take out everybody who hurts me. I'm a big girl and can protect myself thanks to the training Rangeman has provided ... okay ... _insisted _on."

"You did a good job of saving yourself, but you were still injured, Babe. That doesn't make me happy."

"I know. I'm not real thrilled to have another scar to add to my collection, but I would've gotten myself back to Rangeman, or at least called for a pick-up if my Cherokee wasn't able to move. And Eddie would've made sure _Little-Nuts _here got picked up and charged quickly. Let's make him _Jersey's _problem and not let him take up anymore of our day. I'm okay. I'm back with you. And now I want to go home with you. Can you give up getting revenge if I need you to leave here with me?"

I caught Tank's eyes a full thirty-seconds after releasing Steph's pleading blue ones. I then nodded to Tank to take the fucker away. Being my friend since our teens, and a key player in my organization since the plans for Rangeman were finalized, he knows what I want done without me needing to spell out my orders to him.

I'll go home with Stephanie because _I'm _what makes her relax and I can get her to start feeling better, but _I _need to make sure Kipling never gets near her again. Tank will ensure that he's taken to - and kept in - a secure location where he'll remain until the final meeting he'll have with me on a day when he's not so fresh on Steph's conscience.

A predetermined, yet temporarily delayed, outcome that Stephanie doesn't know about, can't hurt her.


End file.
